The quick and unambiguous response came one day after reports that the Interior Department has been working for months to reinterpret the 1973 law in a way that environmentalists said would gut the primary tool for protecting plants and animals on the verge of extinction.

The Bush administration and some Republicans have been working for years to change the act, which they say is onerous and overly expensive for landowners. At each step, however, Congress has blocked the changes.

The new approach would change the law unilaterally by changing the way it is interpreted. Those changes surfaced in a 117-page document and in departmental memos that discuss ways to restrict the law without needing congressional approval.

Dicks, who spoke Wednesday with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, said he was especially concerned by a proposal that would require extra protection only in areas where endangered species are found.

That would significantly narrow protections because current practice includes habitat that historically supported a species, even if that species no longer lives there.

"If you're only going to protect it in its current range, it's an incentive to unscrupulous people to minimize the range," Dicks said he told Kempthorne.

Any change to the law would have significant consequences in the Pacific Northwest, especially for efforts to restore dwindling salmon populations.

Officials with the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service echoed Kempthorne, saying the documents were drafts and not decisions that have been made.

Even so, environmental groups criticized the proposals, saying they would allow the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonneville Power Administration, among others, to sidestep a 2005 federal court ruling that limited the amount of water that could pour through Columbia River dams.

"This latest attack by the administration makes recovery all but impossible for salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest," said Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, the largest fishermen's organization on the West Coast.

Another proposed change would narrow when species can be considered in danger of extinction. Currently, that is interpreted as the statute directs some time "in the foreseeable future." The draft papers suggest a more specific timetable of 20 years for some species and a specific number of generations for others, said Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney for Earthjustice.

Other changes would allow logging, development and other projects even if those activities threaten a species but stop short of "hastening" its extinctions. The proposal also calls for states to have greater authority over protecting species.

Dicks said he told Kempthorne that the changes being considered are major and shouldn't be enacted without Congress' imprint.

"I told him we don't want to see a lot of things changed by rule," he said, adding that he told Kempthorne, "If you're going to change the law send up a bill."

Hasselman noted that many of the proposals were included in past legislation that was defeated.

"Congress refused to endorse these concepts repeatedly over the last 12 years," he said.

What Interior is trying, he said, "is an end run around the will of Congress and the views and values of America."

Dicks said Kempthorne told him that the proposals were in their early form and that final decisions about how to change the law have not been made.

Dicks also said that Kempthorne promised to keep Congress fully informed as the process evolves.